Our little 'gearhead'

Wow, all this toddling makes me thirsty!

He may be only 16-months old, but he can spot an authentic CamelBak a mile away.  Might have something to do with the similarity in nozzle on his favorite bottle by the same manufacturer, so when our little man spotted the familiar blue squishy cap dangling from mommy's MTB hydration pack, he didn't skip a beat... 

Planting a vegetable garden

Helping!

I know there has to be a cookie in here
somewhere!!

 I've always said, of all the cool things I've been fortunate enough to do in life, eating food from my own garden was one of the most incredible experiences.  Those who have followed our previous blog on our kitchen adventures in Afghanistan may recall that we had a lovely vegetable garden in Kabul which provided us with abundant tomatoes, lettuce and plenty of other goodies.  So, I've decided to give it a 'go' one more time in Dili.  While I won't have my trusty chowkidor to assist, I am happy to report, I have a new, willing helper!  Luka and his friends had a blast digging in the dirt, disorganizing our seed stash, and of course - driving the biggest garden tools he could find!

1st Day of School....okay, Playgroup but still.

There was a lot of uhming and ahing over whether Luka was too young to start 'school', and given the amount of stimulation he gets with neighbors and friends, whether he even needed a 'formalized' situation - well - I think this video sort of sums up what he thought of his trial at the Dili International School (DIS) playgroup today...

Dance white boy!

Cuddles

Cuddle time...

After a tumultuous time that included Chris and Luka having to leave Dili early with a bout of bronchiolitis and a chest infection, leaving mommy behind to work on the parliamentary elections in Timor-Leste - we are finally reunited in Scarborough.  Admittedly it was rough going for a few days as Luka got reacquainted with mommy - and we've been dealing with some separation anxiety every since...however, things are on the mend and we are finally settling in and slowing down.  Here is Luka enjoying his latest scheme: wake up at 05h30 and cry until one of my parents lets me sleep on their chest until 08h00 :)  Bad parenting?  Be my guest, try and resist this....

Much better way to wake up

hi mamma!

To the hospital in a hurry

Silly of us to think that Luka would spare us yet another medically-necessitated rapid departure from Dili following our first episode.  Instead, we found ourselves, once again, scrambling to pack in 20 minutes flat, while praying the Internet connection holds to book plane tickets.

Now, now, fortunately this one is much more par for the course and not nearly as exciting and scary as the previous one.  Turns out Luka has Bronchiolitis which is an infection of the small air passages (as opposed to the larger air ways, or the bronchials as was explained to me today). Whatever it is, it makes for one miserable little trooper.  With a fever spike of 40C yesterday, we listened to the poor guy wheezing all night long. At the doctor's this morning his O2 saturation levels (sats) were down to 92%, which is below the 93% that the doctor says is acceptable.  After a few minutes on the torture device known as the nebulizer he responded well - so we were sent home with a home kit to administer ventilin.

All the while we were planning to send Chris and Luka to Darwin tomorrow as a precaution - then it dawned on me, hang on, they're headed to Singapore on Tuesday anyway on their way to South Africa - why not just change that ticket and head up that way - ah right, because the plane leaves in TWO HOURS!  Unfortunately it was also lunch time in Dili, which on an island, is taken very seriously. So we had to wait until after 13h00 before Chris could go back to see the doctor.  By the time he called me to say that she still thinks as a precaution we should take him out, I had under 2 hours to change a ticket and pack for both of them and get them to the airport.  Mind you, it's not just packing for 4 days in Singapore, no, it's packing all the winter clothes Luka and Chris has to take to South Africa for the trip we were originally scheduled to go on next week.

Thanks to Michelle and Judith, we managed to get it all sorted, and off we went to the airport where the Air Timor guys were absolutely amazing and just checked us in right in the office, no line, no counter, no nothing (that is after we showed them the 'fit to fly' medical certificate' of course).

I was devastated to watch the two of them get on the plane, but with my boss out of the country (yes, this always happens when I'm in charge), and the election observation mission I am overseeing arriving in 4 days for the upcoming parliamentary election, I had to stay behind :(

Fortunately we know this is simply precautionary - and soon Chris and Luka will be hanging out at the Singapore Zoo, eating fabulous street cuisine.  We'd just rather he be eating street cuisine down the road from a world class hospital, than wake up tomorrow morning and be out of departing flights for two days.  Just the cost of doing business in our line of work I suppose.

Still sucked putting them on the plane though :(

Officially toddling

It's official, we have a toddler.  Heaven help us.  While I have failed to adequately capture the latest feature on camera - let it be known that we are now stomping around.  Despite not being entirely proficient at the whole walking bit, it has seemingly not stopped us from trying to climb our way into, and out of many things.  This afternoon when daddy put down a wash basket filled with dive gear, Luka proceeded to climb into, on top of, and over the entire heap.  Then when he noticed Gus (the cat) on the dining table, he figured that if he steps on the cross bar of the chair, he gets an extra 4 inches of lift to carefully annoy the cat on the table.

For the purpose of practicing the stomping, mommy purchased a nifty pair of red Crocs sandals (the only size available in giant toddler in Bali) to which we apparently still need to be accustomed to...

Will try and capture and share evidence of the latest phenomenon.

Scrub-a-dub-dub - Luka is in the tub (again)

If the title of this post sounds familiar - it is.  Though, how could you not title it this...here is Luka, slightly more than a year after his very first bath in the NICU, enjoying bubbles (again courtesy of auntie Becca) - thanks to my procurement princess, Luka has two of the most enormous bottles of Johnson's baby bubble bath you can possible imagine - and was making 100% sure he enjoyed it to the fullest!

I simply could not resist these...and yes, he is a total poser!

We're going to have our hands full with this one....